Help the Democrats win Georgia!

The Republican Party’s newest mouthpiece, Newsmax, is calling for Georgians to stop Obama’s “liberal agenda” by voting for Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss against Democrat Jim Martin in a historic Senate runoff which could hand control of Congress to President-elect Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.

“The Dec. 2 special election comes on the heels of the Nov. 4 election in which incumbent Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss outpolled liberal Democratic challenger Jim Martin. But Chambliss fell just short of the 50-percent margin that Georgia law requires. Already, a tsunami of cash from across the country is pouring into both campaigns. ”

Americans overwhelmingly elected Barack Obama for a reason: Change! If he is going to be able to make the big changes needed to overturn eight years of mismanagement and corruption, he is going to need the support of the Congress. Help Obama get the support he needs by helping elect Georgian Democrat Jim Martin to the US Senate. You can do this by voting for him (if you are from Georgia) as early as Nov. 17th or send a campaign contribution to https://services.myngp.com/ngponlineservices/contribution.aspx?X=NqjXO81IXYZntPaqXypreP1LqSo0CHUy

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Democracy at Risk? Voting Problems Reported in One State After Another

From Virginia to Georgia to Pennsylvania, Missouri, Michigan and South Florida, voting problems are starting to look rampant.  Reports have been streaming in for hours of a host of problems preventing people from casting their vote.  Problems include broken electronic voting and optical scan machines, no paper records provided where it is required by law, reports of swapped poll books — meaning polling places do not have the proper lists of registered voters, power outages leading to voters being given paper ballots, poorly trained or unresponsive election workers, long lines and general disorganization.  Read more here: http://blog.ourvotelive.org/

CNN also reporting voting problems:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/voting.problems/index.html

McCain’s Gone Too Far

According to Time, McCain campaign staffers in Virginia are teaching volunteers to see Barack Obama as having terrorist friends, and then providing these volunteers with arguments for persuading voters that Sen. Obama, like Osama Bin Laden, shares responsibility for bombings of the Pentagon.  This is McCain’s PR machine run amuck.  It’s dangerous and intended to incite anger and violent responses.  Ultimately it’s a last ditch effort from a desperate campaign that’s losing ground by the moment.

http://jeffrey-feldman.typepad.com/frameshop/2008/10/frameshop-mccain-volunteers-being-taught-to-accuse-obama-of-terrorism.html

McCain and Palin’s fear mongering tactics unfortunately appear to be spreading as lawmakers in Rensselaer County, NY are calling for an investigation into the misspelling of Barack Obama’s name on absentee ballots.  300 absentee ballots were recently sent out that read “Barack Osama.” Election officials say the mistake was a typo. Here is an interview with best-selling conservative author Frank Schaeffer and former McCain supporter denouncing McCain’s campaign for inciting hatred and violence toward Barack Obama.

“John McCain: In 2000, as a lifelong Republican, I worked to get you elected instead of George W. Bush. In return, you wrote an endorsement of one of my books about military service. You seemed to be a man who put principle ahead of mere political gain.  You have changed. You have a choice: Go down in history as a decent senator and an honorable military man with many successes, or go down in history as the latest abettor of right-wing extremist hate…”http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/13/former_mccain_supporter_accuses_the_senator

Ethics Scandals Continue to Haunt this Maverick

Not only has John McCain fought for deregulation of the banking and financial industry his entire political career, which is one of the chief causes of our economic crisis, but he was directly involved in at least two major ethics scandals where he used his political seat to intimidate and pressure regulators who were investigating his campaign donors. You can get the whole story here at CBS’ website:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/24/politics/main3964240.shtmlSee a 13 minute documentary on the larger of the scandals in the video list to the right.

See a damning 13 minute documentary on the larger of the two scandals “Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis” in the video list to the right.

Thousands of doctors Demand McCain Release All Medical Records

John McCain has not yet released his medical records to the public. McCain is 72 years old, and has been diagnosed with invasive melanoma. In May of this year, a small group of selected reporters were allowed to review 1,173 pages of McCain’s medical records and were allowed only three hours to do so. John McCain’s health is an issue of profound importance. We call on John McCain to issue a full, public disclosure of all of his medical records, available for the media and members of the general public to review. Signed by 56,974 people and 2,759 doctors.

Click here to see their full page ad in the NY Times and to see a video of interviews with doctors on why it is so important for McCain to allow the public to make an informed decision at the polls: http://therealmccain.com/doctors/

Four More Years of Secrecy? Palin, The Incredible Hidden Candidate

by Tom Price

The McPalin faction hasn’t fixed the election yet, but already the cult of secrecy so characteristic of the Cheney-Bush cabal is in full swing.  In more than a month since Sarah Palin rode the chill north wind into the hearts and addled minds of America’s right wing, she hasn’t given a single press conference. In fact, the crypto-VP, who might be one heartbeat away from taking over for a septuagenarian president, is so shielded from public dialogue you might think it was her son who got knocked up.

Maybe the Republicans thought they could shield Palin from the media, and that the rubes would blame the media. That might be backfiring. Palin is down in the polls, and the more the republicans hide her, the further down she’s likely to go. And McCain didn’t win any praise in choosing a vice president so woefully under qualified that she still believes Bush invaded Iraq to stamp out Al Qaeda or take down the nukes or whatever. Maybe she really doesn’t know about the oil.

What would the corporate media ask her? How about this: Do you believe the world was created 7,000 years ago? Is it flat? Or: As president, would you continue the Cheney-Bush policy of ignoring subpoenas and believe the Executive Branch to be above the judicial and the legislative branches? Do you still believe in faith-based birth control? Would you have someone write signing statements for you saying what parts of laws passed by Congress you would ignore? Would your secretary of the treasury walk into Congress and ask for a blank cheque for $700 billion and the plenipotentiary authority to slip it into the pockets of his buddies on Wall Street? Might your treasury secretary be former senator Phil Gramm, McCain’s economic advisor who authored many of the de-regulation bills that helped collapse the economy? Inquiring minds would like to know.

Even the conservatives want to help her into a parachute. Here’s what Kathleen Parker said in the arch-conservative National Review Online:

“As we’ve seen and heard more from John McCain’s running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion. ..Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League…If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.”

Then Parker suggests Palin bail out.

10 months ago (Dec. 27, 2007):

Investment Banks Dole Out Record $30 Billion in Bonuses

Meanwhile investment bankers are celebrating on Wall Street. Four of the country’s largest banks—Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns– are expected to dole out an estimated $30 billion in bonuses this year. The CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, is receiving a record $68 million bonus. Last month housing advocates called on the nation’s largest investment banks to donate their holiday bonuses to a foreclosure prevention fund that will help prevent a new wave of foreclosures. NONE of the banks agreed to help set up the fund. Less than a year later, they are set to receive billions in taxpayer funds. Merry Christmas ’08, banking industry!

Meanwhile McCain’s own ethics scandals are brewing…

McCain has a long history of unethical and questionable behavior. Here’s the latest:

WASHINGTON — Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.

Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/us/politics/21mccain….

Links to additional sites that lay out a long pattern of unethical behavior, as well as sites that document his voting record and list his campaign contributors:

http://www.mccainpedia.org/index.php/Keating_Five

http://www.democrats.org/a/2006/12/mccains_ethics.php

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?CID=N00006424

http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=S0061103